“My first days in prison passed dismally enough. When I enlisted I had imagined that I should at least become an officer. Longa and Mina, countrymen of mine, are captains-general; Chapalangarra, who, like Mina, is a negro and is a refugee in your country—Chapalangarra was a colonel, and I have played tennis twenty times with his brother, who was a poor devil like myself. Now I said to myself: ‘All the time that you have served without punishment is time thrown away. Here you are blacklisted, and to regain the good graces of your superiors, you will have to work ten times harder than when you first enlisted! And why did you receive punishment? For a gypsy hussy, who made a fool of you, and who is doubtless stealing at this moment in some corner of the city.’—But I could not help thinking of her. Would you believe it, señor? I had always before my eyes her silk stockings, full of holes, which she had shown me from top to bottom when she ran away. I looked through the bars into the street, and among all the women who passed I did not see a single one who could be compared with that devil of a girl! And then, too, in spite of myself, I smelt of the cassia flower she had thrown at me, which, although it had withered, still retained its sweet odour. If there are such things as witches, that girl was one!
“One day the jailer came in and gave me an Alcala[14] loaf.
“‘Here,’ said he, ‘your cousin sends you this.’
“I took the loaf, greatly surprised, for I had no cousin in Seville. ‘It may be a mistake,’ I thought as I glanced at the loaf; but it was so appetising, it smelt so good, that, without disturbing myself as to whence it came or for whom it was intended, I determined to eat it. On attempting to cut it my knife came in contact with something hard. I investigated and found a small English file, which had been slipped into the dough before baking. There was also in the loaf a gold piece of two piastres. There was no more doubt in my mind; it was a gift from Carmen. To people of her race freedom is everything, and they would set fire to a city to save themselves from a day in prison. However, she was a shrewd minx, and with that loaf one could snap one’s fingers at jailers. In an hour’s time the stoutest bar could be sawed through with the little file; and with the two piastres I could exchange my uniform for a civilian’s coat at the first old clo’-man’s. You may imagine that a man who had many a time taken young eaglets from their nests on our cliffs would not have been at a loss to climb down into the street from a window less than thirty feet high. But I did not wish to escape. I still possessed my honour as a soldier, and to desert seemed to me a heinous crime. However, I was touched by that token of remembrance. When you are in prison you like to think that you have a friend outside who is interested in you. The gold piece disturbed me a little, and I would have liked to return it; but where was I to find my creditor? That did not seem to me a simple matter.
“After the ceremony of reduction to the ranks, I thought that I could not suffer any more; but I had still another humiliation to undergo: when, on my release from prison, I was restored to duty and made to take my turn at sentry-go like any private. You cannot conceive what a man of spirit feels at such a time. I believe that I would as lief have been shot. Then, at all events, you walk alone, in front of the platoon; you feel that you are somebody; people look at you.
“I was stationed at the colonel’s door. He was a wealthy young man, a good fellow, who liked to enjoy himself. All the young officers were at his house, and many civilians—women, too, actresses, so it was said. For my own part, it seemed to me as if the whole city had arranged to meet at his door, in order to stare at me. Finally, the colonel’s carriage drives up, with his valet on the box. Whom do I see alight from it?—the gitanella! She was arrayed like a shrine this time, bedizened and bedecked, all gold and ribbons. A spangled dress, blue slippers, also with spangles, and flowers and lace everywhere. She had a tambourine in her hand. There were two other gypsy women with her, one young and one old. There always is an old woman to go about with them. Then, there was an old man, also a gypsy, with a guitar, to play for them to dance. You know that it is the fashion to hire gypsies to go about to parties, to dance the romalis—that is their national dance—and oftentimes for something else.
“Carmen recognised me and we exchanged a glance. I do not know why, but at that moment I would have liked to be a hundred feet underground.
“‘Agur laguna,’[15] she said; ‘you seem to be mounting guard, like a raw recruit, my officer!’
“And before I had thought of a word to say in reply, she was inside the house.
“The whole company was in the patio, and in spite of the crowd, I could see through the gate almost everything that took place.[16] I heard the castanets, the tambourine, the laughter and applause; sometimes I could see her head when she leaped into the air with her tambourine. And then I heard some of the officers say to her many things that brought the blood to my cheeks. I did not know what she replied. It was that day, I believe, that I began to love her in good earnest; for I was tempted three or four times to go into the patio and run my sabre into the belly of those popinjays who were making love to her. My torture lasted a good hour; then the gypsies came out and the carriage took them away. Carmen, as she passed, glanced at me again with the eyes that you know, and said, very low: